Apollo
by ninemelodies
Summary: After the third sketch of wings for the day – this time they were similar to the ones of the sparrow he had seen in the garden earlier but attached to a human figure that looked strikingly similar to him – Noctis's lips thinned as he crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fire place.


"You know what happens if you leave, right?"

The man paused for just a moment before turning around to face the person who had spoken. He didn't speak, just bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. The man turned on his heel and left the room. He didn't belong here, not anymore. It was time for him to leave, but he would be back.

He would make them all understand.

When Noctis was little, his dad, Regis, would tell him stories about the God of the Night, and the god's younger brother, the God of Twilight.

The God of Night ruled over the darkness and was the one responsible for the rise and fall of the moon. He protected people lost in the darkness and punished those who were using the night to hide evil deeds. However, over time, more people began to use the night as cover for their sins, and The God of Night couldn't keep up. He couldn't protect everyone, nor could he punish everyone. In his anger, he hid the moon from sight and sent down a scourge to haunt the people that lurked in his shadows.

But the scourge didn't just affect the bad people in the shadows. Whatever he used to create the scourge changed something in his mind, twisted it and warped it till it was beyond recognition. The God of Twilight, seeing the corruption of his brother, confronted him. The God of Night realized that he had no allies among the other gods, and so he left, taking the moon with him for almost a week.

Eventually, The God of Twilight took over his brother's job, though not his title, and brought the moon back. Nobody knew what happened to The God of Night. Most believed that he had gone to the mortal plain, where he was consumed by his own scourge and killed.

His dad always told him that the scourge still lingered, and that was why he could never go outside at night. Not that Noctis ever had a reason to – there was nobody on this island but them.

Noctis was bored. Noctis was always bored, so it wasn't like it was anything new. When he wasn't helping his father cook or clean or check the small garden they had in the area behind the house, Noctis sat on the bench he had shoved underneath the window sill and drew until sunset.

There wasn't anything in particular he drew, though as he got older he seemed to notice a reoccurring theme of wings. Maybe he was projecting more into his drawings than he realized.

After the third sketch of wings for the day – this time they were similar to the ones of the sparrow he had seen in the garden earlier but attached to a human figure that looked strikingly similar to him – Noctis's lips thinned as he crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fire place. It would do no good for his dad to see them and get upset.

His dad knew that Noctis hated it here. A reminder would be unnecessary.

"We have to keep him contained! If he gets much stronger, he will wipe out the last of Somnus's line along with the rest of humanity!"

There was an overlap of voices. They were all tinged with fear at the idea of what was coming.

One voice cut through the din. "He was never very good at puzzles. Trap him a never ending, always changing maze. See him get out of that."

The hall was quiet. Maybe their fear was unneeded.

"I'll inform him of what he must do if he wants to keep his son safe."

When Noctis turned 10, a man showed up at the door. His dad rushed to open the door, commanding Noctis to go to his room at the same time. But Noctis had already locked eyes with the man standing in front of their house, and he felt a chill crawl down his spine. The man had a look in his eyes, a sort of desperation that Noctis never wanted to see again in his life.

Noctis turned and hurried back to his room before the man could stare at him any longer.

The man wanted them to build him a labyrinth, with an entrance directly under their house. There was a trapdoor in his dad's workshop, but underneath there was only a small, damp cellar for storing vegetables before the winter set in.

Noctis didn't understand how they could fit a whole labyrinth there.

The night before they started to work, his dad sat him down and told him another story. This time it was mostly about The God of Twilight, and the powers he and his brood possessed. (His father picked Noctis's name because of this relation. Noctis meant night, and it was almost funny because Noctis had never spent any time outside after the sun had gone down.) There was magic flowing in their veins, his dad had said, though Noctis had a hard time believing that he was related to a god.

It wasn't that Noctis didn't believe in them, Noctis knew much better than that. Besides the fact that recently, it seemed like the sun was always trained directly on him – no matter what time of day it was. There was always enough light to draw at his windowsill, from sunrise until the sun slowly (unwillingly, it seemed) slipped below the horizon.

Noctis knew it was a silly notion, there was no way a god would be interested in him, just like there was absolutely no way he could believe that he was _related_ to one. (He kept this opinion to himself, and just nodded when his dad said that they could use magic.)

Noctis came to hate the labyrinth they were being forced to build. His dad never really told him why they had to, just that they always had to keep expanding it – making sure that whatever resided in the center couldn't escape.

Day after day his dad spent underneath that trap door, adding new walls and traps, murmuring words in a language Noctis didn't completely understand. When he did, Regis almost seemed to glow. But then the moment would pass, and his dad would slump against the wall for a moment before standing and moving onto the next section.

Regis didn't emerge from the trap door until well after midnight each night. He ate, bathed if he felt like he could, and then slept. Noctis didn't get to see much of his father at all, and he knew that it was because of the labyrinth.

Noctis's job was to design the maze itself. He would sit for hours, creating turn after turn, dead end after dead end, trap after trap. He didn't understand what they were trying to keep from escaping, only that when he had asked his dad about it, a look of fear had crossed Regis's face.

Noctis never asked again.

But that didn't mean he could feel the evil beneath his feet. There was something ancient lurking in the labyrinth, he knew. Something full of hatred and anger. With each passing day it seemed to get stronger, and Noctis began to wonder if they were still going to be here when (not if, he could tell already that his traps weren't strong enough to hold anything that powerful back) it escaped.

Every time Noctis returned to his windowsill bench to draw, the feeling of being watched increased. He remembered that when he was a child, he thought that the sun was shining for him and for him alone. Now that he was older, Noctis figured it was just his child imagination running wild.

But he still couldn't shake the feeling that it was so much brighter where he was sitting than it was anywhere else around him.

Regis ended up seeing one of Noctis's drawings of a person with wings. He stops and stares at the doodle for a long minute. His eyes flicker up to Noctis's face before he vanishes below the trap door again.

When Noctis comes back the next morning, there is a framework for what looks like two human sized sets of wings spread out on the desk where he usually spends his time drawing, and his dad is nowhere to be found.

It continues this way for several days. Noctis goes to bed and comes back to find the wings more finished than they were the night before. Noctis never sees his dad work on them but the progress proves that he must be.

He's not really sure what his dad is planning, but there is a small nugget of hope buried deep in his heart that tells him that these wings are his ticket off this island.

Regis is almost unrecognizable at this point. He's a skeleton of the man he was when they first started this labyrinth 5 years ago. Noctis knows that it's the labyrinth sapping his father strength, but he also knows there isn't a thing he can do about.

He takes an angry bite out of the apple currently into his hand and stares at the trap door his father had once again disappeared under. His hatred of the labyrinth grows, and he can feel the darkness that it harbors grow too.

Noctis is 15 when he starts to dream of sunlight. Before, he had only dreamed of darkness, of a greasy voice calling his name from beneath the trap door in his dad's bedroom. But then the darkness fades and Noctis catches a glimpse of hair the color of sunflowers and eyes the color of the summer sky. Noctis can't quite make out a face, and the man doesn't talk, but that doesn't stop Noctis from waking feeling the warmest he has in years.

It is the day before Noctis's 20th birthday, and the wings are almost finished. The bigger pair, his dad's, he assumes, have been sealed and are mostly dry. His pair, the smaller pair, just need a coating to keep the wax from melting in the heat and the feathers in before they too are ready.

But as the wings have come along, the voice calling to him from beneath the trap door has been getting stronger. It knows his name now, and every time the wind whispers past Noctis's ear, he swears he hears his name and an evil laugh. Noctis still doesn't know what's being trapped in the labyrinth, but he knows that he wants to get as far away from it as he can.

The day of Noctis's 20th birthday, the darkness inside the labyrinth swells. The walls and traps his father had painstaking constructed begin to crumble, and Noctis can only watch in horror as the grotesque shape of a man saunters towards them.

Regis cuts off his line of sight to the man and begins to shove Noctis up the stairs. He's yelling at Noctis but Noctis can't hear anything besides the blood rushing in his ears.

Noctis can't help but shake the feeling that he's going to die today.

Regis slams the trap door shut and mutters something in that peculiar language. The door glows briefly and then it fades. Regis is a little greyer when he stands up, but he manages to lift both sets of wings and hand the smaller one to Noctis.

Noctis doesn't remember putting the wings on. Doesn't remember tightening the straps or running his hands along the soft feathers lining them. Doesn't remember the warning his dad had shouted at him over the rush of the wind.

But Noctis does remember that the air above the sea is cold and wet, and if he stays down here too long, the feathers will get heavy with water and he'll fall. So he rises, up, up, up, until he can feel the sun warming his back.

Noctis can see the shore when the tip of his wing falls off into the dark sea below him. The exposed metal tip whistles in the wind, and Noctis can't understand what's going on until it's too late. More pieces of his wings begin to melt, and suddenly he's falling hard and fast.

Somewhere along the way, Noctis managed to flip himself over so that when he died, he would die facing the sky. Noctis hears someone yell his name and the sunlight swells around him. In the light, there is a hand, and Noctis grabs it. He's dead, and this is his escort into the afterlife. Noctis closes his eyes, at peace with the idea of dying.

"I appoint you to the night sky!"

The sunlight dims and the ocean is calm. There are a few feathers floating on the water and in the daylight sky, across from the sun, sits the faint outline of the moon.


End file.
